Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of and management of resources for mobile users.
Description of the Related Art
Financial services cards, such as debit, credit, and ATM cards, are ubiquitous. Fraud prevention is an increasingly difficult task.
Mobile devices, particularly smart phones and tablets, are seeing phenomenal growth. It is expected by industry analysts that the percentage of consumers who own smart phones soon will outstrip the ownership of the old-fashioned “feature phones.” Tablets are increasingly being used for many information tasks by mobile users since their size is decreasing and they are becoming less cumbersome to use in a mobile setting.
Consumers carry mobile devices with them at all times and everywhere. It is a rare consumer who leaves his house without carrying one or more mobile device on his person. Consequently, consumers always have a mobile device handy and often use them in all kinds of situations and environments. Some of these situations may be dangerous to the consumers and/or the general public.
Recently, there have been a flurry of reports in the media highlighting the danger of drivers of automobiles text messaging while driving. Indeed, many fatal accidents have been reported in the press and several legislative bodies have outlawed such use of mobile devices. Drivers of trains and buses have also been charged with such acts of carelessness that have resulted in harm to the general public. The situation is not limited to text messaging but to many other kinds of services available on mobile devices such as games, phone calls, internet browsing, etc. The situation is also not limited to drivers of automobiles but also to operators of buses, public transportation systems. etc.
It is therefore of great public interest to find a general solution that can allow a service provider to detect when a driver or an operator of a transport device is engaged in activity that can potentially lead to a distracted state. Many methods and systems have been proposed to restrict consumers from text messaging while driving.
Certain proposed methods and systems require that the driver's telecommunication signal be jammed within the confines of the automobile. This is clearly unacceptable since it will also render the passenger mobile devices to become inoperative.
Certain other proposed methods rely on detecting when a mobile device (being carried on the person of a consumer) is in motion and rendering it incapable of text messaging (or other services). Again, this would be unacceptable if the device does not belong to the driver of the automobile.
It is therefore imperative to detect when the driver or operator of a car or any transport device is actually engaged in driving the car or transport device. Once such detection has been made, only the device in question should be isolated for any action that the policy of the service provider dictates